


Things We Lost

by Buckysaur



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: "the blood belongs to the other guy", Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky is not very good at dealing with emotions, Bucky is on a mission to avenge himself, Bucky is reckless, Dorks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Mission, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Prompt fill: Sam flying Bucky beyond enemy lines, Sam is worried, don't worry no one dies, graphic depictions of the AFTERMATH of violence, no actual wounds, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buckysaur/pseuds/Buckysaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mission was unauthorised, of course. Probably part of Bucky’s own personal agenda to take Hydra out, which he claimed the Avengers were taking far too much time for doing. </p><p>Prompt Fill: Sam flying Bucky beyond enemy lines. (Although this mostly deals with the aftermath.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missingnolovefic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingnolovefic/gifts).



> Prompt fill for the lovely miss-ingno on Tumblr, who asked for "Sam flying Bucky beyond enemy lines." I'm not sure if this is what you were expecting. Please don't cry.
> 
> This could be seen as taking place in the same universe as my other fic Stray Cat, but it is in no way necessary to have read that fic in order to read this.
> 
> Once again thanks to the wonderful chaperoned for beta-reading this <3 You are a true inspiration.

They’d done this dozens of times while fighting with the Avengers, but never like this. Sam would never even have agreed to it had it not been Bucky asking. Not because he was his boyfriend, but because there had been something frighteningly stubborn in the man’s eyes when he’d made the request. Something that told Sam that if he didn’t agree to fly Bucky past Hydra’s front lines, Bucky might just get himself killed trying to do it alone.

That was why he — albeit while uttering a curse or four — had given in, and was currently flying thousands of feet up in the sky through the cold night with Bucky’s elbows jabbing into his sides.

The mission was unauthorised, of course. Probably part of Bucky’s own personal agenda to take Hydra out, which he claimed the Avengers were taking far too much time for doing.

Although Sam had to agree that it was taking a long time, it didn’t escape him that there was a good reason for that. Steve, Natasha, Clint and Coulson, who were heading these operations, were being careful. (Or at least Coulson was, the others, Sam wasn’t so sure about.) That was why all the missions they _had_ carried out had gone splendidly. And also why Sam was terrified for Bucky’s life on this one.

Bucky had argued that it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done solo a hundred times before. Sam hadn’t had the heart to argue that he had been brainwashed at the time.

In the end, one thing had led to another and that was how he’d ended up flying through the night with Bucky, fearing they would not make it out to see the morning ever again.

“This is bad,” Sam muttered as he looked down upon the — for now unsuspecting — Hydra forces on the ground. “I don’t think our plan is going to cover—”

“We’ll be fine,” Bucky insisted, and Sam didn’t have to be able to see his face to know he had that determined look in his eyes.

He grit his teeth. “Look, I’m all for optimism, Buck, but this is suicide.”

“Is not,” Bucky said, and promptly let himself fall from Sam’s arms.

“God _damn_ it, Bucky!” Sam shouted, and he retracted his wings, plummeting down the sky in an attempt to catch Bucky before he was reduced to a pancake on the mountainside.

He grasped for his boyfriend’s shoulders, fingers digging into and trying to get a grip on the leather straps of Bucky’s uniform. He let his wings out again, grunting against the pull of gravity as he held onto him, his fingers on the edge of breaking.

They hit the ground hard, and it took Sam a moment before he could follow Bucky in rolling onto his feet. “ _Never_ do that again, you hear me!” He shouted angrily. Bucky didn’t reply as he took off into the masses of Hydra goons now rapidly closing in on them.

 

* * *

 

A trail of blood dripped onto the carpet floor of their apartment as they made their way to the bathroom. Sam didn’t waste a moment to even take off his clothes, and got under the shower in full gear, groaning when the hot water hit his body. He moved stiffly as he unbuckled his wingpack, and winced when he bent down to put it safely on the tiled floor. Red tinted water dripped from his clothes, his weapons, his fingertips. It circled down the drain, only to be followed by more, more, more. It had been a messy fight. Nevertheless, each and every one of the hundreds of Hydra goons at the base had died at their hands.

Sam’s fingers shook as he tried to undo the buckles of his vest, and he couldn’t get a good grip on them. He cursed, and suddenly there was a metal hand over his, and then a flesh one as well. Sam looked up at Bucky. He had taken off all his gear, standing completely naked with him under the hot stream of the shower, and finally Sam was able to recognise his boyfriend again in the man before him. It was as if the cold and calculating mask that had been so firmly plastered on his face all night was finally chipping away. Still, there was an emptiness in Bucky’s eyes. As if he could not quite see the damage that had occurred within Sam. Could calculate it, but not comprehend it.

“Here, let me,” Bucky said, his voice rough, and Sam let his hands fall down, leaned back against the tiled wall as Bucky stripped him of all the weight he couldn’t bear to carry any longer. When it was all gone, Bucky curled around him, their legs tangled together as they both soaked in the warmth of being safe again. Sam’s fingers curled up in Bucky’s hair.

“Never do that to me again. Never,” he said, his voice remarkably clear through the shards tearing him up inside.

Bucky shifted against him. Sam knew he was probably looking at him, but he didn’t avert his eyes from where they had been plastered to the ceiling, flooding his mind with white, white, light. Clean. Comprehensive.

“Sam, we’re fine. We’re alive. We’re not even injured. Don’t you see? We can do this! We can take Hydra out, together.”

Sam cursed, and turned his head to finally glare at Bucky. “You call this fine? I spent the past five hours saving your ass at every other turn.” His words were clipped. Angry. “You’re mortal. You could have _died_ , Buck.”

Bucky shrugged, a lopsided grin breaking through his stone features. “But I didn’t.”

“But you could have!” Sam was shouting now, and it took him a moment of standing, panting to realise that he had pushed Bucky away from him. He blinked some water out of his eyes. Bucky was staring at him, the grin not quite faded yet.

“Sam, I’m _fine_ , you’re fine. Everything went according to plan,” he said, enunciating slowly as if he were speaking to a child.

Sam blinked again, but this time it was because his vision was swimming with tears. “So letting yourself fall out of the sky was part of the plan, too? I only barely caught you in time to break your fall! You would have broken your legs if I hadn’t!”

Bucky stepped forward, reaching out to him almost pleadingly now. Sam took another step back, standing completely out of the stream of the water now. He was shivering. “I knew you had my back,” Bucky argued, smiling again. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been sure you wouldn’t—”

“No! Fuck that! I’m done with your excuses, Bucky!” Sam interrupted him, motioning angrily with his arms. “You’re not even the same person when you’re out there! If I hadn’t come with you— if I hadn’t been there— you would have _died_. And you could still have. I can’t always protect you— you can’t always count on me. You’ve got to— you’ve got to at least _want_ to survive!”

Bucky was not smiling anymore. “I do want to survive. I _need_ to survive to wipe Hydra off this planet, I—”

Sam stepped closer to Bucky, into the spray of the water. He grasped his boyfriend’s wrists and forced himself into his space, pinning him against the bathroom wall. The water was hot on his cool skin, which coloured red instantly.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Sam sneered. “You want to survive just long enough to exterminate Hydra. Other than that… you don’t even _care_. That’s the only reason you are still alive. Just to—” He bit his lip angrily. He didn’t want to say more than he had. It was already far too much. Bucky’s eyes radiated hurt. “I’ve already lost one wingman, Buck,” Sam explained, his voice very quiet. He leaned in, unable to meet Bucky’s pained gaze any longer. He rested his forehead against the tiled wall. Closed his eyes even though the darkness flooded his mind with images he’d been trying to forget. “Please don’t make me lose another.”

“I won’t,” Bucky said. “I won’t leave you.”

“Except you could! Except you—” Sam knew his grip was probably bruising Bucky’s one human arm, but he couldn’t let go. “You could die. You could die at any moment, even if you don’t want to. You could just fall— and— _fall_ —” Just like _he_ had. “Please don’t fall,” he pleaded, his voice breaking.

“Sam— I— I’m sorry. I won’t. I promise. I won’t,” Bucky said, shifting them around and curling into Sam much like he had earlier when he’d first joined him in the shower. Sam didn’t fight it, and instead clung to him, his fingers now digging into into the other’s back in a way that had to be painful, if his own aching muscles were any indication. Bucky didn’t flinch away, however, only pulled him closer. “I won’t fall. I’m with you for life.”

“I hope that’s a long life,” Sam whispered against Bucky’s skin, and a chuckle so dark and cynical that only Bucky could manage to give it a cheerful twist erupted from his boyfriend’s throat. Bucky’s human hand stroked over his hair.

“That’s what I was planning for,” Bucky said fondly, and Sam’s chin was tipped up by a hot metal finger. Their eyes met first, and then their lips.

“Don’t think this means I won’t still bitch at you for being irresponsible,” Sam warned when they broke away, smiling through the tears that were still in his eyes, but hopefully invisible in the steamy shower.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Bucky purred against his lips, and then kissed him again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I take buckysam prompts on my tumblr: buckysam :)


End file.
